US-Taiwan council likes China plans

The US-Taiwan Business Council expressed support on Tuesday for Taiwan's plans to approve more applications by Taiwanese chipmakers to move 8-inch wafer fabs to China and to allow the use of 0.18-micron manufacturing technology in China.

"Taiwan's willingness to relax its China investment regulations continues an incremental approach to liberalization of Taiwan's cross-strait technology relationship with China," said Rupert Hammond-Chambers, president of the council, in a press statement.

"The council supports these steps, as they will strengthen Taiwan's competitiveness and increase the attractiveness of Taiwan companies to America's technology community," he added.

The US-Taiwan Business Council urged Taiwan to finalize its policies on 0.18 micron and China fab investments as soon as possible and to explore further areas for cross-strait technology liberalization.

Last Friday, Huang Chin-tan (黃慶堂), head of the Investment Commission, told the Taipei Times that the government was considering lifting the long-term restriction on local chipmakers to invest in China by year's end.

This would take place after the commission reaches a consensus with the Mainland Affairs Council, Huang said.

Huang said that two computer memory chipmakers, Powerchip Semiconductor Corp (力晶半導體) and ProMOS Technologies Inc, (茂德科技) will be allowed to set up one 8-inch wafer fab each in China by the end of this year.

The government would also allow local semiconductor firms to produce chips with relatively advanced 0.18-micron processing technology, he said at the time.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manu-facturing Co (台積電), which is now using 0.25-micron technology in its Chinese production facilities, is applying to use 0.18-micron technology to make chips in China.